


Nathaniel

by edan_marie



Category: The Woman In Black - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:56:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edan_marie/pseuds/edan_marie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'They think I am evil. Evil, and malicious, and cruel. But when you've lost the single most important thing in your life, how do you ever become anything else?'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nathaniel

They think I am evil. They think I am vile, and cruel, and everything wrong with the world. But they don't understand. How could they? How could they ever even begin to imagine the agony of having the one you love taken away from you- and then, when you are so close to getting them back, you lose them again in the worst way possible? They cannot even dream of understanding my pain. So I had to show them. Don't you see? They needed to know my pain and it was the only way.

Oh, Nathaniel. Dearest, darling Nathaniel. Every second of every day I think of you. I think of how grown up you'd be, how kind and polite and like your father was when we first met. I truly loved him. But I love you even more; more than anything and anyone on this Earth. They no doubt believe me to be incapable of love. All they see is my hate, as fiery as the sun; and all my despairing rage. But when you've lost the single most important thing in your life, how can you show any other emotion? You can't. All there is is the ache; the ache in your heart and mind and every other inch of your body. I've been dead for years, but the pain of losing you is still as raw as it was that first day, when I watched you sinking on the marshes until your very existence was nothing but a memory.

There was no other way to show them how much it hurt. They needed to feel it for themselves, every last one of them. So I took their children. I stole their lives and watched their parents grieve every day until they died. Their grief was overwhelming, their hate for me never ending. And yet they still think they're nothing like me. Every parent on this planet is exactly the same, and yet so few of them would confess to it. When we lose our child, we will go to the ends of the Earth and back, do the worst possible things imaginable, if only to bring our child back. If you'd been murdered, I'd have gladly killed the one to take you from me.

But when nature is the one responsible for killing your child, who do you turn on?

I tried so hard to be a good person after your death. But the grief ate away at my heart, and then I saw those other children laughing and playing, and I thought- why? Why should they live, when my Nathaniel cannot? What did my sweet, innocent boy do to deserve such a terrible fate?

You did nothing. You were perfect, when so many children in this terrible town are nasty and rude, and utterly undeserving of life. That's when it started, Nathaniel. The hate. The rage. I couldn't control it, and now I feel ashamed that I am capable of such horrors. You'd be ashamed, wouldn't you? And you'd be right to be so disgusted of your own mother.

Forgive me, Nathaniel. They think I am evil. And they are right.


End file.
